How do followers work on product hunt? Do I need them to successfully launch a product?

Hey there! I'm gearing up for my first launch 🚀 on product hunt, and am trying to do my homework. I found some great advice here about whether or not you need a lot of followers yourself to successfully launch, but it does really explain how followers work more generally and how people with big followings could benefit our launch. I've given up hope on gathering a big following myself before launching, but I do have friends, colleagues, and other folks in my network that have decent product hunt followings. I definitely plan to make them aware of our launch (and hopefully they love our product) but I'm wondering if an upvote or comment from someone with a large following is somehow more beneficial than an upvote or comment from someone with a small following (like me!). My hunch is there's got to be some benefit but I'm not seeing any alerts or anything from the people that I follow (that I'm aware of). Would love any clarity on the topic! 🤓